Moriarty in 'Ship in a Bottle'

[dupersuper]

Even so, I find the moral implications really upsetting. Have felt that way since Voyager.

Yeah: Voyager was definitely the worst offender. You could write off Moriarty, The Countess, Vic and the EMH's as special cases (either by design or accident), but then you get whatever Fair Haven was...then Author Author pissing all over Measure of a Man...

 

[Timo]

How so? Man creating life wasn't the big deal in "Measure of a Man" - indeed, it was dismissed as an issue both initially and eventually. Nobody really cared whether Data was this or that, as long as he passed the Turing test like any good little toaster; it was only in the middle of the process that Maddox or his legal adviser realized that quibbling over definitions was the way to victory.

Data is not a milestone in machine thinking. He gets admitted to Starfleet not because he would be interesting, but because he is not. Nobody studies him, until our heroes find out he's a Genuine Soong, at which point Maddox takes an interest. Other experts like Graves just laugh him off.

In Trek, there's nothing special about thinking machines. They are characters like any other: some are heroic, others are vile and menacing, yet others are amusing. It's just that they aren't limited in ways familiar from "real live" characters: they can be enslaved home appliances, overbearing overlords, simulacra of fellow humanoids, or all of these at alternate hours. And accordingly, their rights (and wrongs) are all over the map, too.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tenacity]

Was the small hologram of Tasha Yar, seen briefly in Measure of a Man, a fully aware sapient being?

 

[Mojochi]

Was the small hologram of Tasha Yar, seen briefly in Measure of a Man, a fully aware sapient being?

It had about as much charisma.

 

[dupersuper]

Was the small hologram of Tasha Yar, seen briefly in Measure of a Man, a fully aware sapient being?

That puts a weird spin on Data carrying a mini version around with him...